The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1887-03-05
WOMEN AND THE SALOON.


Though the saloon brutalizes and de-
grades men, and increases the friction of
all progressive effort immensely, tie suf-
fering which it entails upon women is
heavier and keener. The material grief
involved is but one phase of the subject.
IL the saloon wrecks thousands of lives
and homes, its victims go to ruin with
paralyzed sensibilities; and when they
are inhicting most pain upon those who
love them, they are the least capable of
realizing the truth. The liquor, whose
habitual use dulls all the faculties, ex-
tinguishes conscience, shame and self-re-
spect in the course of its destructive
work, and the hardened drinker will sac
riice every thing to his master passion
without scruple or hesitation.
But the women who are doomed to
bear the heavy burden of relationship to
drunkarde, are indeed to be pitied. The
domesticity from which few of them can
escape forces upon them perpetual exper-
fences, SO heart-breaking, SO revolving,
that their existence is prolonged TRACE
dy. All the caprice, petulance, unreason.
tyranny, brutality engendered by drink
is expended upon them. All the social
degradation and modification of the posi-
ton falls upon their heads. The living
man chained to corpse is not more terri
bly, situated than the wives and daugh-
ters of the saloons victims. Liquor elm
mates all the drunkard's good qualities,
reinforces all his worst vices, and having
TINS transformed him, sends him home
to torture and abuse those whom it is his
first duty to cherish aad protect.
At the sacrifice Of her future happi-
ness, the wife may sometimes obtain di-
vorce; very often, however, her inability
to support herself compels her to endure
her torment, or the reluctance to expose
Der children to reproach constrains her
to bear everything. It is seldom that
women are so situated as to be able to re-
sumo celibate life without submitting
to serious hardships, and perhaps in a
majority of instances, they can secure a
separation only by facing restitution.
There is no evil which operates so direct
ly and with such disastrous potency
against the family, as the saloon in fact
1t is the direst enemy of domestic happi-
ness, and peace. Even in it's mildest man.
ifestations it alienates men from their
homes; creates in them habits of selfish
indulgence; gives them sensual interests
apart; brings into competition with the
innocent recreations of the home circle.
coarse, vulgar and extravagant amuse.
ments. In its more pronounced opera
tons it stops at no such trihes as the
production OF mere discomfort, but pro.
ceeding without disguise, turns men into
wild beasts, and then let's them loose
upon their families. What makes this
especially shocking in that we are all &C.
quainted with it's truth, yet that we have
hitherto tolerated it passively.
The horrors to which drink exposes
women are worse than those of slavery.
The sufferings of the wives and daughters
of drinking men are more acute and con-
slant than most men are probably capa-
BILE of experiencing. We all know this.
yet we go on calmly in the old way, as if
we thought women ought to be thus
abused. or believed that, though the mat
ter was pitiful no help could be found
for it. = George Frederic Parsons IN the
Atlantic.